Ink Stains On Parchment
by DelphiByProxy
Summary: Random ficlet, it's kind of a work in progress. Marauder era.


Rated: PG-13 for now

Characters: Sirius Black x Remus Lupin

Note: Characters so aren't mine, but seeing as JK doesn't match the characters up properly I figured I'd do it for her. I'm not making money from this story, though, that'd be nice, seeing as I'm poor.

"Welcome to your first day as a 5th year, Prefect Boy," smiked the ebony haired teenager known throughout the school as Sirius Black.  
He was speaking to one of his best friends, Remus Lupin, who was indeed attatching a small badge to the front of his robes. These two boys for the most part weren't alike in any way. While Remus' golden coloured hair was in exactly the same position that it had been when he rolled out of bed a half an hour ago, his friend's was perfect. Mostly becasuse when Sirius had gotten out of bed he had made a beeline for the bathroom to make sure that it was. Apart from that there was the obvious fact that Remus had been made Prefect while Sirius had not. James and Peter were absent from the dorm for the simple reason that the first day back at school meant that James would not be seen until their first lesson, he had to practice divisionary tactics of course, and Peter who had been on a broomstick perhaps twice in his life was perfectly happy to trot down to the pitch behind james and watch, basking in the seeker's reflected glory.

"Yeah, laugh it up. Watch how many points I can take," muttered Remus with an obviously empty threat.

It made sense that he'd be a Prefect of course considering James and Sirius spent a bit too much time playing tricks on already suspecting students and staff and have gotten caught out of bed more often then any one in their year combined. They were actually impossible to take seriously. Remus on the other hand fit the roll to a tee with his calm, quiet ways to his obsessivness with studying. Remus' reasoning for this was very simple, if he kept his head down he might go unnoticed and with that he wouldn't have to risk awkward questions about where her vanished unexpectedly. He spent most of his time studying because if he was very, very lucky he would perhaps be able to find work after he was done with school.

"Hey," Sirius barked, snapping his fingers in front of Remus' face a few times for show. "Where'd you go, mate?"

And just like that Remus was pulled from his reverie and gave a small smile. "No where. Is you vision perhaps going bad? C'mon, I don't want to be late for lessons," he said briskly, slinging his school bag over his shoulder and heading for the door.

Sirius groaned in annoyance as he too followed suit, though his bag was much lighter.

'Bloody Lupin,' he thought, though not really meaning it as he to marched down the stairs that led to the Common Room and followed Remus out of the portrait hole.

It was later that afternoon in History of Magic class that Sirius found himself distracted from taking notes, that didn't mean much because he very rarely took notes in the first place seeing that it took a person with almost unnatural and extraordinary skill not to fall asleep by the mere sound of Professor Binn's voice. James and Peter apparently lacked that talent. As James was merely writing...not notes on the Vampire Crusade of the late 18th century, but a very detailed list as to why Gryffindor would be beating Ravenclaw in the first Quidditch match of the season. Peter was sleeping.

Remus however was hunched over his desk in the row in front of his friends, his eyes on his textbook and his hand had a quill placed firmly in it writing frantically. If Remus boredt by the subject he was doing a decent job of hiding his disinterest. Sirius found himself grateful because he was too preoccupied with staring at Remus to even take bad notes and Remus' filled half a roll of parchment. In the back of his mind he was sure he wondered why he couldn't take his eyes off of the golden haired boy in front of him, but he didn't let that interfere with his staring.

For what it was worth, Remus wasn't really interested at all in taking notes, but fortunately his resistance was higher than that of his classmates, most of whom had already fallen prey to the overall sleepiness of the room. Remus at least remained mostly attentive. Then quite suddenly he realized he wasn't writing anymore, instead staring directly ahead. A small had manifested itself on the small of Remus' back and travelled up his spine. Very, verp slowly Remus turned sideways to look behind him and his golden eyes that almost matched his hair met the passionate grey eyes that belonged to Sirius.  
Sirius' lips which had been closed tight for the first few moments of this stare off parted only to have the lower one placed between his teeth for him to chew on. It was very odd the way these moments seemed to last forever before Remus gave Sirius a rather broad grin and turned back around. But Remus didn't take any futher notes that class and Sirius didn't stop staring.

*********

Three nights later and the Gryffindor House team had it's first official practice, not to be confused with all the unofficial practices James had been doing with only Peter for company. James of course was out by the field with his team mates, flying around as though he was God's gift to broomsticks everywhere and Sirius, Remus and Peter found themselves in the stands. Peter watching James with an obsessive admiration while Sirius watched with a mere haughty boredom that he had mastered when he was twelve. Remus however didn't watch the practice at all. His wand was held in his hand with the tip lit, illuminating the text book that sat in his lap. Clearly more interested in his book then struggling to see James fly in the increasingly dark night.  
"He's a really great flyier, you know," Peter insisted.  
Sirius laughed in a decidedly superior way, "You can't even see him"  
It was this comment perhaps that made Peter rise from his seat and get closer to the field. Sirius shook his head in amusement and turned his attention to Remus.  
"Moony, why're you studying? You don't even have homework," Sirius asked this knowing full well it wouldn't matter. It seemed to him that Remus studied for the sheer sake of doing so.  
Remus however answered without looking up, "Full moon is on Monday, I don't want to be stuck trying to catch up in lessons. Arithmancy is becoming a bit complicated."

"Sorry," Sirius said quickly. "I've stopped keeping track."

"It's fine," Remus replied, his eyes still not leaving the page of his textbook.

Sirius didn't respond, instead he chose to resume his curren favourite past time and kept his eyes on Remus. It took maybe half a minute for Remus to stop reading and look up to Sirius.  
"You're doing it again"  
"Doing what?"

"Acting all worried, it happens once a month, I'm used to it. It doesn't even hurt all that much anymore,"a lie obviously, but Sirius didn't need to know that,

Sirius let a sigh escape silently through his lips. Relief.

"Also you keep staring at me"  
Sirius' usually smooth, even skin became a subtle shade of pink.  
"Have not"  
"Mmmhph," Remus responded, not taking the conversation any further and glancing down to his book, but he found he was no longer in the mood to read it so he just kept reading the same sentence over and over again not even trying to remember the information.  
A few minutes passed in silence, the people in the air ahead of them shouting and cheering as James apparently made another extraordinary catch in the darkness.  
"Are you mad"  
"What? No"  
"Okay then"  
After a few moments passed, once again feeling like an eternity Sirius lifted his hand up to run his fingers through the werewolf's hair neither of them commenting on the fact that this action might be a litte strange to occur between two blokes.

++++++++++++

Friday afternoon the Gryffindor fifth years found themselves once again bored to no end in their second History of Magic class that week, but it seemed that this time the tables had turned. With Remus sitting in the same row as his fellow Marauders but his notes weren't nearly up to their usual calibur seeing as he had gotten distracted about ten minutes into the lesson and was now watching Sirius chew on his quill, it seemed he was equally bored with both Professor Binns and with James talking about Lily Evans.  
Sirius caught Remus' eye and offered a smirk and that was when Sirius might fancy him. Then he realized that he was the one staring at Sirius this time and he actually laughed, which caused quite a few people to stare at him. Remus Lupin, laughing in class...Luckily Professor Binns never noticed such things. Either way though, Remus flushed a deep crimson and glanced down to his notes.  
"Hey," Remus said in what he hoped was a casual voice to Sirius after their final class of the day.  
As the clash rushed out of the Transfiguration class room practically speeding down to dinner James offered a hurried, "see you tonight." before heading the opposite way of the crowd towards Gryffindor Tower.  
"Evans said she might show up to practice," Peter said quickly before following James.  
They both looked kind of confused by the situation however Sirius recovered first.  
"Hey," he offered a grin that for some reason made Remus' stomach feel odd.  
The silence between them was slightly awkward, yet not uncomfortable. Remus broke it.  
"Think Lilly will show up"  
Sirius laughed, loudly. "No way." The ebony haired teenager placed his arm over Remus' shoulder andthe two headed into the sea of students all starving from lessons.

*  
The evening passed without much happening except for the fact the no one was allowed down to the Quidditch field, except Lilly Evans, because the team seemed to very worried about potential spies sneaking into the crowd. Remus didn't mind, it merely meant he could do his homework in the comfortable fire of the common room and Sirius was taking the time to copy Remus' notes from Potions. Peter however looked very sullen.  
"Evans gets to go down and watch but I'm stuck up here...how is that fair"  
Remus gave his a slightly sympathetic look, wondering how on earth Peter didn't realize how very badly James wanted Lilly Evans and how much more important that was then having Peter watch the practice. Sirius however decided to be very blunt about it.  
"Get over it. You may be his mate, but she's his obsession. There's not even a chance he'd rather you watch him play"  
Peter glared at Sirius for a moment before getting up from his seat and moving across the room to settle himself at a table and pull out his Astronomy homework.  
"He's such a prat sometims, perhaps we should get him laid"  
Remus scoffed and Sirius offered him a puzzled expression as his response.  
"I have O.W.L.S to worry about, I'm not about to start working endlessly to get him a girlfriend"  
"What about you?" Sirius inquired. The question startled Remus and took his time responding.  
"I-I don't have time either.," he said finally. Very much hoping that the discussion would be over.  
"But if you did," Sirius insisted. "You'd want one right"  
Remus was looking at his book rather then Sirius, it seemed easier.  
"I maybe --I dunno," Remus offered lamely.  
"Oh that's a yes! You want a bird," Sirius exclaimed.  
"No!" Remus nearly shouted. "That's your's and James' deal. I don't worry about stuff like that"  
Sirius was staring at Remus, as though hurt.  
"It's not always my deal...I think about other stuff then girls.  
Remus looked up smirking. "Like what"  
"Like...my mates, pranks....finding new stuff to do. ..You"  
"Mates, school work...furry little problems"  
"No, I mean...I think about you"  
For Remus it was rather like someone had cast a charm that took all the oxygen out of the room, his stomach doing that flippy thing once more. And for the second time that day Remus found himself turning red. The prefect would have much preferred not to look at Sirius but he couldn't bring himself to look away.

"Sirius." Remus said suddenly after a full minute of silence. His voice very angry, and it shoiwed in his suddenly stony eyes and thin lips. "This better not be some sort of prank"  
"It's not"  
"I'm not playing around, if you're messing wit"  
"I'm NOT," Sirius insisted, suddenly he looked very serious, which was very unlike him. And now finally he was the same shade of red as Remus.  
As quick as Remus' anger had appeared it vanished.

"Okay then...I think of you sometimes to"  
"Please, only sometimes?" Sirius was suddenly back to his usual self to. "I've seen you staring at me all over the place"  
Remus' jaw dropped.  
"Are you joking? You must be. You've been staring at me, if anything"  
"Perhaps," said Sirius thoughtfully. "But you stared back." 


End file.
